While this isn’t a thrilling or adventurous type of blog hop, it is no less important. If you have a kid (or if you were a kid) that had to deal with bullying, we are banding together to bring attention to this important issue.

After my post, PLEASE VISIT THE OTHER AUTHORS via the links at the bottom of this page.

First, let’s be honest – bullying isn’t going to go away. As long as you have idiots in the world and there is no impending gene pool cleansing, bullies will exist on the Earth. Our goal here is to talk about it.

Second, bullying should never be ignored. And I mean EVAH!

I remember being told I looked like a pitbull because I had dark skin and ‘black’ features. I was called nappy headed, ugly, skinny, black dog and more. I was told I would never be anything but a poor whore. Yeah, being black in American could really be fun *pffft*. Unfortunately, those names were thrown at me by other black students. At school. Every damn day.

It’s part of the reason why this song became my anthem (no, this song didn’t exist at the time, but my thoughts and sentiment were the same).

Anyway, I remember a girl named Sylvia stomped into my class in middle school and demanded that I go out into the hall to fight her and a group of five girls *yeah, like that was going to happen, right?*. The reason: One of the popular boys in school liked me. The end. The teacher sent those girls packing. Then she sent me to the principal’s office with an escort so I could go home early so they couldn’t have a chance to jump me after school.

Guess who met me at the principal’s office? I’ll give you three guesses, though you will only need one. Sylvia and another girl named Trina plus a whole new batch of cronies were waiting. The end result was that there was a group of almost ten girls that wanted to kick my ass for no other reason than I wasn’t in their clique.

But I had a tough mom. I could tell her anything. Not to mention she taught me to take care of myself and to fight if I needed to. My mom also came up to the school and let them know in no uncertain terms that she would applaud me and take me to Baskin Robins in reward for taking care of myself if the school couldn’t control those crazy bitches.

These days, schools are more likely to punish a kid who stands up for him or herself than they are to punish the bullies. I don’t understand it, honestly. So, parents need to really be aware of what’s happening. Ask your kids if they are having any issues at school and share your own experience with bullying. This way our children won’t feel embarrassed if they know we were once in their shoes. We also don’t want our kids to feel ashamed or weak if they’re scared. It’s normal to be afraid.

If a child doesn’t feel comfortable talking to a parent about being bullied, then guess what — that’s the parent’s fault. It’s tough talk, but no less true. So fix it. Make sure your kid feels that they can tell you anything. That, to me as a person who had to deal with being scared to go to school each day, was the most comforting thing ever.

And when my own kids were bullied, they knew they could come to me. They also knew that this mama bear would put up with no one messing with her cubs. Yes, I made trips up to the school. And yes, I had big sister wait for her little brother at the bus stop and she witnessed her 3rd grade brother getting pushed around by a 5th grader. We told the Vice Principal. Nothing was done. So when my daughter witnessed her brother get thrown to the ground so hard he smashed his face on the cement and broke his front teeth, dear darling daughter beat the crap out of that bully with her lunch box.

And both my kids got ice cream that day.

Now, many people would say, “Oh no. You should never fight. It doesn’t solve the problem.” And they’re right, to a point. But I can say that bully went on to mess with someone else’s kid rather than mine.

16 comments to “Yeah, I’m empowered!”

Bullying is totally the pits, and so much worse than back in the day.
Bizarrely I wrote a post earlier this week with bullying as one of the themes: http://akandrew.com/pen-do-you-have-the-freedom-to-write/ – I’m in Kick Ass Writers Part deux – too late to have my name added to your list?

You post made me think of something… I never understood why girls would call other girls “sluts” and “whores” (and worse) like those words were OK to use… and sometimes as words of almost-affection. As girls, if they treat each other like that, then they tell everyone else it’s ok to treat them like that.

I won’t lie, I cheered when I read that your daughter beat the crap out of the bully. I think it is such a great thing that you and all those other authors are standing up and addressing the issue. You are absolutely correct that bullying isn’t going to go away and frankly the more techno-advanced our society gets I think the worse it will become. Kids tend to forget that there are people with feelings on the other end of the screen, and that their words can hurt worse and have a more lasting effect than physical violence. Again thank you for sharing your story and standing up and saying that it isn’t an acceptable behavior and that something needs to be done to prevent it as much as possible! You rock TJ!!!